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In Guns They Trust

See the linked article and ask: ” was this a logical and reasonable thing for the boy to do?”

Under the circumstances and due to the prevailing(?) attitude to firearms in the US I think it was. Sadly!
Is it any different to home owners arming themselves just in case? It just seems more shocking that a child should do this out of fear of what may happen at school.

“US authorities say an 11-year-old boy caught with a gun at school in Utah told administrators he brought the weapon to defend himself in case of an attack similar to the mass shooting last week at a Connecticut elementary school…”

As it was pointed out in comments under a previous post, the only answer to the violence (and the gun obession) is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what about the attitudes of the American Christians responsible for sharing that gospel? What role do guns (for protection) play in their lives?

What Kind of gospel can be shared when trust is placed in weaponry rather than in the God of the Gospel?

Marleen,
Thanks for that – it unfortunately shows yet again the kind of extremist attitude that keeps America hostage to violence. But sadly, to the rest of the world those attitudes seem to be the norm in America rather than the attitude of a minority.

The very people who are so doggedly determined to maintain their “right to bear arms” are the very people who cannot be trusted to own guns. Such warped attitudes and such ignorance are the very things that make widespread availablity of guns dangerous.

Guns may not kill people, but people with paranoid attitudes who see guns as a means of protecting “freedom” use guns to kill people.

If “freedom” needs to be protected that way it is no freedom at all. It is slavery to paranoia, fear and violence.

The second amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for the proper place of gun ownership being “well-regulated” (which is often overlooked by the extremists). Also, no matter what the framers of that Constitution may have intended at the time, it is clear that we now can not reasonably argue we should or even can have the power to fend off government via arms — as I hope these people don’t think every independent person should have access to canons and atom bombs and so on. This guy did mention drones (and I do think they are legal privately right now).

Oops: I mean cannons. Incidentally, we may have a bigger threat from private armies than our official military. For instance, we have supposedly-Christian-run Blackwater (which has been renamed more than once); and a lot of those people are “those” people (the extremists).

In the western world it seems to be a peculiarly American idea that citizens need the armed ability to protect themselves against their own government and military. It’s not suprising that America has a history of targeted “evil empires” to which attention can be directed to divert hostile attention away from the government. While the people fear the “reds” and now the “terrorists” the government can feel more secure with increased safety from its own armed citizens. It is easier for the government to promote an external enemy than to face a potential enemy from within.